STATE AIR BOARD CHIEF TO EPA? PLEASE, NO

The announcement by Environmental Protection Agency chief Lisa Jackson that she was stepping down quickly prompted speculation that the Obama administration would look California’s way for a replacement. In late 2008, state Air Resources Board chair Mary Nichols was a top contender for the EPA post. Now the San Francisco Chronicle suggests that she may again be under consideration.

Given her record at the air board – and given the fragility of the national economy – we hope President Barack Obama looks elsewhere. On matters big and small, Nichols has run the agency with a combination of deceptiveness and recklessness that should endear her to hard-core environmentalists but to just about no one else.

For two examples, agency officials took initial steps toward criminalizing the underinflation of tires and banning black paint on vehicles – both with the goal of improving mileage – only to retreat after waves of ridicule. For another, Nichols never told most of her governing board that sweeping, costly, flawed diesel-emission regulations had been drafted by a bureaucrat with a mail-order Ph.D. – an official who wasn’t fired even after being caught lying about his credentials.

In the bigger picture, Nichols also championed a massive long-term shift to cleaner but costlier forms of energy in California – without ever making clear how much it would cost the average resident or how risky it was for the economy.

This is not a mindset we need at the EPA. Or, for that matter, at the California Air Resources Board.